


[DISCONTINUED] I've a Feeling We're Not in Hallownest Anymore

by Doggoo



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Human, Fisrt fic and idk how to tag but here we go, Gen, HK bugs are not humans, Hollow makes a friend, Hornet discovers bones, Hornet discovers how to terrify innocent children, Hornet discovers trees, I mean there are humans but there are also HK bugs, I'll add on more tags as we go, Post-Dream No More Ending (Hollow Knight), and then another one in quick succession, baby? acquired., but not really, making it up as we go, not beta read hhhnng, they are dumped into the human world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27665630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doggoo/pseuds/Doggoo
Summary: [DISCONTINUED]sorry bro---After vanquishing the infection once and for all, three siblings wake up in an entirely different world. Chaos ensues.
Comments: 59
Kudos: 152





	1. Hornet

When Hornet finally came to, the inky darkness fading from her vision, she was immediately on guard.

It didn’t matter if she felt like all the strength in her body had been sapped from her limbs, pulled ruthlessly out through the various stinging cuts and scrapes in her shell, and dragged screaming into the depths of the void.

She pushed herself to her feet, then checked her supplies. Thankfully she still carried her needle, but she had no tools or traps on hand and her silk reserves were completely gone. She’d used the last of it during the battle… though she could barely recall the events that had taken place in that infection-choked chamber. She’d shouted at the little Ghost, and they’d drawn a shining, ethereal nail. Then someone- something- had screamed, and the shadows had intensified. 

Hornet didn’t remember anything after that, but she was sure that she’d blacked out in the Black Egg Temple. And now, looking around her, she realized that she was definitely _not_ in the Black Egg Temple.

It was dark. She was outside, surrounded by a strange, twisted version of Greenpath. The ground was cluttered with foliage and small, packed leaves. However, the… bushes, if she could call them that, were _odd_. Of course, there was plenty of greenery on the ground, but there were also bushes in the air, held up by wooden poles of some sort. The poles were an off-white color and pockmarked with short black scars. After a little examination, she deduced that the poles must be thick, sturdy stems of the bushes, raising them up to the air. Strange. 

She turned her gaze skyward, looking past the leafy canopy to see stars. She was on the surface? There were so many stars though. Where were the clouds? There was always a thick layer of clouds in the sky above Dirtmouth, and stars could only be seen at the clearest of times. Here, though, there seemed millions of tiny twinkling lights, pins of white fire on a great canvas of ebony blue.

Everything was strange. Where _was_ she?

A rustling sound to her left and she whirled around, needle drawn. She crouched down, tensing up. The strange forest seemed similar to Greenpath, but she did not trust that the wildlife was anything but dangerous. The bush rustled again, then a blur of brown burst from the leaves. Hornet leapt back with a cry and propelled her needle forwards, instantly impaling the thing with a sharp cry.

A sudden hush swept over the forest. Hornet froze and held her breath, startled by the abrupt silence. She tightened her grip on the hilt of her blade.

They stayed like that, the silent forest and the lone huntress, until slowly the ambient sounds of the forest returned to normal. Hornet allowed herself to relax, just a little. She raked her gaze over the foliage around her, but she saw no more creatures. Hopefully, she thought, her little demonstration would serve as a fair warning to other less mindless bugs. She would not be easy prey.

Speaking of prey. Hornet strode forwards to examine the corpse. Was it edible? She didn’t want to make any rash decisions, but she suddenly realized that she was absolutely _starving_. 

The little beast that she had impaled was not a bug, that’s for sure. It was tiny, brown, and covered with fur. Its eyes were soft and glassy and it had two small, strange-looking flaps of fur in the place of horns. It had an impossibly fluffy tail, and its exoskeleton(?) itself was unnervingly squishy, like a maggot. Unlike a maggot, it seemed to have some kind of hard interior. Hornet shivered internally as she poked the thing again. One oddity after another. First, the plantlife. Then, the stars. Now, there was a creature lying dead before her feet, possessing a seemingly inverted exoskeleton. An endoskeleton? Was that even a thing?

Her stomach protested, and she groaned. She didn’t want to eat the odd little beast, not when she didn’t even know what it was. She was already exhausted, though. Perhaps… should she rest? A nap suddenly sounded like the best thing in the world. The urge to simply collapse on the floor was almost overpowering- but she could not rest, not now. She needed to find her way back to Hallownest.

She needed to find her way home.

\---

Hornet had only been in this strange land for an hour, and she had already made a few revelations.

First, the furry little creatures- the kind she had speared on her needle- were edible and actually quite delicious. She didn’t find any lingering trace of infection when she’d dissected one, which made sense because the little Ghost had completely eradicated the Old Light and the plague that she’d brought with her. Hornet had decided to test her luck and had ripped off a small portion of the creature’s flesh to eat. The task was surprisingly difficult, she’d expected it to be more akin to the flesh of a maggot but it was thicker and tougher, and bled dark red hemolymph. Hornet deemed it acceptable and took a bite. It was surprisingly good.

After finishing off the rest of the creature’s meat, Hornet examined its weird endoskeleton. Although the whole thing was stained with red, she could tell that its skeleton was made up of thin individual fragments and was a pale white color. Hornet found that she could pry the individual bits of the skeleton away from the whole thing and that the bits were actually quite easy to bend and snap although their material was still tough. Hornet tried eating the skeleton-bits as well but decided that they weren’t worth the trouble of gnawing through. 

She ended up burying the red-stained remains of the creature, which really only consisted of its picked-apart endoskeleton and it’s furry pelt. After, she stood up and wiped her mask, flaking off bits of dried red liquid. She cleaned and sheathed her needle before heading off into the forest.

The second revelation that she’d made was that the furry little beasts weren’t the only creatures in the forest. When she eventually took to the canopy, finding that she could leap more easily from trunk to trunk, she started to encounter a few tinier, feathered creatures. They reminded her very much of maskflies, actually, especially with their tendency to fly off in a hurry when startled. She found herself taking extra care to sneak up on them when she came across them, only to suddenly lunge forwards with a loud “ _ha!_ ” It was extremely entertaining to watch the not-maskflies explode into a flurry of startled feathers.

Hornet had also encountered larger furry creatures, slinking across the ground while she snuck over their heads in the canopy. She’d considered hunting them as well but quickly shot down the idea. It would bring more trouble than it was worth, and Hornet’s hunger had abated. She skirted over these strange creatures with ease. 

There was always one thing that she noticed during an encounter. None of the creatures possessed any kind of exoskeleton. They were all the same soft, fleshy, and furry build as the initial beast, and Hornet decided that their internal structure was the same as well.

The third revelation that Hornet made was much more startling. 

\---

She had been snaking through the canopy when she noticed that the trees had begun to thin, signaling that she was approaching the end of the forest. She hadn’t come across any of the larger creatures either, which made sense because most inhabitants tended to shy away from the borders of their territory. 

Hornet had just decided to drop down from the canopy and continue her travels on foot when she spotted a light in the distance and froze.

The light was something different from what she was used to. It looked artificial, unnatural, but lacked the allure of a higher being’s shine. It was also moving around, and although Hornet was rather far away from its glow, she instinctively tensed up and gripped the handle of her needle. 

As the light slowly grew closer, Hornet realized that it was coming from a small object not unlike a lumafly lantern. She could also sense that there was a creature behind it. Multiple creatures, in fact, judging by the sound of their footsteps. Either that, or it had three separate pairs of legs (which seemed improbable, all other creatures she’d encountered so far had a maximum of two pairs). She stayed frozen as the creatures entered her line of sight. 

She was right, she thought to herself as they filed into her view one by one, not knowing that she was watching them from the canopy. There were three of them, traveling in a pack and sharing the lantern’s light. The way they acted brought back memories of when she’d encountered a small group of bugs from the City of Tears that had wandered into Deepnest as a dare and had subsequently gotten lost. She’d enjoyed terrorizing the hell out of them before finally taking pity and guiding them back to the tramway to the ancient basin. 

She was brought out of the memory by a faint whisper. The group slowly made their way closer to her hiding spot, whispering amongst themselves and occasionally pointing at things in the undergrowth. As they came closer she noticed that they all wore clothing of various styles and colors. Just like every other creature so far, they had no exoskeleton, but unlike the creatures, they were neither furry nor feathery all over. Instead, their fluff seemed to be gathered at the top of their heads, each one of the creatures’ fur a different length and shade of brown. None of them wore masks, but one of them- the one holding the not-lumafly lantern- had a hood over their head. All of their faces were uncomfortably expressive.

Hornet stalled. Should she reveal herself or stay hidden? She wanted to choose the latter option, but to let pass the chance to finally find out where she was was something that she could not afford to do. If the creatures got aggressive, she would have to rely on her speed and agility to flee. She wouldn’t want to risk fighting them, there were too many unknowns, but she would bet good geo that she would be able to outrun them, seeing how they were stumbling through the undergrowth. 

She slid down the trunk and landed with a soft _thwmp_ on the forest floor, keeping her needle sheathed behind her back. The sound alerted the creatures and the one leading the group held out an arm to signal the rest to halt. The leader held the not-lumafly lantern forwards and squinted into the darkness, and Hornet realized that they probably could not see as well as she could. After all, she was used to the near pitch-black tunnels of Deepnest, and they were using a lantern. She tensed, still extremely hesitant to reveal herself, then raised her hand and took a step forward into the lantern light. “Greeti-”

All three creatures screamed. Hornet instinctively assumed a battle position and drew her needle as the front creature dropped the lantern and stumbled back into the other two. All three scrambled backwards and took off running. Hornet immediately started after them. “ _Tch._ Wait!”

The creatures ignored her, her shout being immediately overpowered by the sheer volume of their shrieking. They continued to run away, but they weren’t very fast at all and Hornet quickly caught up. Or, she would have, if not for the fact that the group she was chasing had reached the treeline. Wyrm curse it, they were closer to the edge of the forest than she’d thought. Just beyond the treeline lay a house, and all three of the panicking creatures immediately steered towards it. Hornet, however, skidded to a stop. 

A house meant a village, and a village meant that there were many more of those creatures. Creatures that she had _definitely_ not made a good impression on. She had to leave before the three she had chased came back with reinforcements, who would be undoubtedly hostile. 

Cursing, Hornet fled back into the forest. 


	2. Cara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Local woman finds whole-ass baby in the forest

Cara sipped her coffee as the old TV rambled on in the background. 

It was a hazy morning, the weather had been non-stop rain for the last few days and she doubted that today would be any different. 

“Jeez, Cara, look at this one!”

Tracy leaned forward in her seat from across the breakfast table, holding up a section of the local newspaper. Cara set her mug down on the table and leaned in to take it. It was an article about some alleged monster sighting that had happened a few nights ago. Cara had read it already, but she pretended otherwise for the sake of her younger sister. “Hm, what’s it about?”

“Some high school kids went into the woods a few nights ago and saw a monster!” Tracy explained, proud to have found something so not-mind-numbingly-boring in the paper. “And you say nothing good ever happens in our little ol’ town.” 

“Mmh.” Cara took another sip of her coffee. She had to give her sister some credit, she was right. Even if the “monster sighting” was most likely just some under-the-influence teens stumbling across a deer or something in the woods at night, it was still the most entertaining thing that had happened all week. 

“David told me during lunch yesterday that the monster had  _ wicked _ white horns and black eyes like the biggest bug you’ve ever seen,” Tracy told her proudly. “And that it was covered in  _ blood _ .”

“You’re both in middle school, Trace.” Cara pointed out, finishing her coffee and standing up to go rinse out the mug. 

“Yeah, but David’s older brother was one of the kids who saw the monster.”

Cara  _ hmmed _ again. She did that a lot.    


“Well,” Tracy continued. “I’m gonna go hang out with him later, you can come along and ask him yourself.” 

“I’ll pass”

“You’re no fun.”   


“You wound me,” Cara deadpanned. “I’m gonna go do my homework.”

Tracy slumped over the table, hair splaying outwards like a mop, and groaned in such a comically exaggerated way that Cara had to fight to suppress a snort of laughter. 

\---

The day dragged on slowly.

Tracy had left the house a while ago, leaving Cara all alone. Which at first, she didn’t mind, but the situation quickly became mind-numbingly boring. Cara blamed her homework. There was only so much digging through a textbook to find and define obscure anatomical terms she could do before her brain started to melt out of her ears. 

_ Okay, that’s enough _ .

Cara stood abruptly, sending her chair rolling backwards. Labeling each and every characteristic of thoracic vertebrae could wait or god help her she was going to  _ lose her mind _ . She was almost beginning to regret turning down Tracy’s offer earlier. Almost. Because it meant she would have been interrogating her little sister’s friend’s older brother about the “monster” he saw while he was “totally not off-his-rocker-drunk,” and she was  _ not _ desperate enough to face that amount of awkwardness just yet. She wasn’t  _ that  _ bored, okay?

…

Okay, maybe she was.

If she told herself that she wasn’t at least a little bit intrigued by the possibility of something actually exciting happening in the town then she would be lying.

Cara left her half-finished homework on the desk and slid on a jacket, grabbing an umbrella out of the closet just in case it started raining during her walk. Her walk that would definitely not purposefully take her by David’s house, where her sister would undoubtedly be playing outside at the little creek that ran by, and if she just happened to spot Cara walking by and call her over it would be so rude to just ignore her, right? Plus, it was way past noon, and Tracy would need to come home for lunch anyway. Cara could always fall back on that if she was questioned. Which she probably would be, because Tracy would most definitely want her to admit that she actually did want to take the offer that morning.

Cara paused to grab a second jacket on her way out. Knowing Tracy, she definitely forgot to bring one when she left the house, and would most likely be freezing but too stubborn to admit defeat and ask her friend to borrow a jacket. She quickly checked her reflection in the closet mirror, making sure she didn’t look  _ too _ disheveled (she did, and she ran her fingers through her hair a few times to straighten it out), then she was on her way.

Right as she stepped outside, it started to drizzle. Cara huffed and drew her umbrella, the dark blue fabric unfurling and almost catching her in the face.  _ What a lovely start _ . 

Alnerwick was a nice place when it wasn't raining non-stop. The small town was located right at the edge of a forest, and the scenery was almost always absolutely gorgeous, especially in the spring. Unfortunately, the spring was also one of the rainiest seasons, and it was pretty hard to appreciate the beauty of the little old down when the sky was constantly throwing water in your face. Thank god for umbrellas. 

Cara paused. She was walking by the edge of the forest, roughly halfway between her house and David’s. The bushes were rather thick and clumpy in this area, causing them to pile up in an almost wall-like formation. Cara knew from previous experiences that there was a blackberry bush hidden somewhere in the thicket, Tracy had discovered it one day and the sisters had spent the rest of the evening filling up a basket with the little dark berries. That wasn’t why she’d stopped, though.

A thin white  _ something _ poked out from a clump of bushes. 

Cara squinted out from under her umbrella. It looked to be around the length of her hand, from what she could tell while standing so far away, but it was thin and split into two little prongs at the end. Was it a bone? She stepped off the path and carefully made her way over.

As she drew closer, she saw that it was attached to something the same shade of white, but she couldn’t tell exactly what it was. It was tangled up in the bush, and leaves were blocking most of it from her view. 

Cara crouched down and reached out. She hooked her fingers around the white thing and pulled it out of the bushes with little resistance, revealing a _ whole-ass baby _ . 

She shrieked in surprise and let go, causing the thing to tumble the rest of the way out of the bushes and land in the wet grass at her feet. 

Cara froze, sitting on her ass in the mud, with the umbrella thrown to the side and the rain all but forgotten. Holy shit, what the hell  _ is  _ that? The strange-looking baby thing was still lying face-down in the mud and leaves where it had originally fallen. Cara stared at it like it was an alien. Hell, for all she knew, it  _ was _ an alien. It had a white, vaguely marshmallow-shaped head with two horns sticking out the top. Cara realized that the object she’d seen poking out of the bushes had been one of the horns. Its body was an entirely different story, pitch black and stubby, and covered with a weird blue cloak. It wasn’t moving. 

_ Wait, shit, is it dead? _

Cara looked around wildly for a stick to poke it with. She grabbed the closest- a scraggly-looking twig- and turned back to the thing. It hadn’t moved. Leaning a little closer, she reached out and poked it on the horn with the tip of the stick. The creature trembled, just the slightest bit. Cara almost thought she’d imagined it. Okay. Okay, it was alive. Hell, what was she supposed to do now? Never in a million years would she have imagined that she would end up in this situation.

The best course of action would be to get it out of the rain, right? She reached forwards, careful not to touch it just in case its skin was poisonous or something and swaddled it as securely as she could in the jacket that she’d brought for Tracy. The little creature was surprisingly light, and its head lolled as she picked it up and held it at arm’s length. Suddenly Cara was filled with overwhelming anxiety. 

Now that she could see it’s front, she could see that it had a rather nasty-looking crack down the center of its… face? Mask, maybe? It looked like a mask, especially with two circular holes in the middle that gave it a rather adorable, albeit slightly creepy appearance. The point was, the baby-thing looked like it was hurt, badly. Cara set it down again in order to strip off her own jacket and wrap it around the creature as well. She held it carefully, close to her chest, as she bent down to grab the umbrella. Not that it would do any good now, both she and the creature were absolutely soaked. 

Cara didn’t want to run back, fearing that she’d jostle the creature too much, so she set her pace to a brisk walk. The creature, swaddled from head to toe in jackets, felt cold against her chest. 

\---

When she reached the house, the rain had still not stopped. In fact, the wind was blowing harder than ever, buffeting against her body and forcing her to close up the umbrella to keep her grip firm on the creature in her arms. 

She stumbled up the steps of the rickety porch and fumbled with the door handle, letting herself inside and out of the storm. Then, finally, Cara allowed herself to let out the breath that she hadn’t even realized she was holding. 

She clenched and unclenched her fists, forcing herself to relax. Breathe. She could do this, all she had to do now was to patch up the baby-bug-monster-thing enough so it wouldn’t die. Hopefully.

_ Hell, I am  _ not _ ready for this.  _

She laid the bundle of jackets containing the little creature on the table and ran to grab the first-aid-kit out from under the sink. When she got back, the creature hadn’t rolled off the table and cracked it’s head open on the hard wooden floor, so at least she could do one thing right. 

She carefully unraveled the jackets, revealing the little creature underneath. It looked even smaller now that it was out of the rain. She made a quick mental prayer to any and every god that was out there that nobody came home while she was patching up a half-dead baby monster thing on the kitchen table, then unzipped the first-aid kit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick question: Do I write enough for a chapter, or does it seem too short? Should I work to add more? I'm trying to aim for 2000 words per chapter but this one fell a tiny bit short... just wanna make sure I'm doing everything ok ^^
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, your comments on the first chapter gave me super-euphoria and I'm still riding that high  
> .｡*ﾟ+.*.｡(❁´◡`❁)｡.｡:+*


	3. Hollow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby #3? Located.

The Hollow Knight did not move. It had not moved for a long time. Well, not counting the scene that had taken place an undetermined amount of time before, the Radiance twisting her sick influence throughout its limbs and puppeting it around like a corpse on a string. It did not like that feeling. 

No, it did not feel. 

But it  _ did  _ feel. It felt pain and it felt sorrow and worst of all it felt failure, an ugly twisting emotion in the very center of its being. It had failed to contain the Infection. It had failed to be Pure.

What was to be done with it now? Would it be replaced? No, there was no need for a vessel anymore. Not since the littlest sibling had united the void, vanquishing the Radiance and putting an end to the Infection once and for all. It was tragically ironic. Two siblings, the one who it had let fall to the depths of the abyss being the one to finally put an end to it all. The Hollow Knight felt a wave of guilt and shivered, down to the core. It would never deserve its sibling’s forgiveness, not when it had burdened them so.

If there was no need for a vessel anymore, would it be thrown out? Yes, that seemed like the most probable course of action. After all, what use does a broken tool possess? It would just have to wait to receive its final, inevitable verdict.

So it waited. 

Each throb of pain from the crack in its mask served as a stinging reminder of how it had so utterly and completely failed. Each horrible pang ricocheting through the stump of its torn shoulder and abdomen felt like the stabbing of a million rusted nails, a punishment well deserved. But the vessel was so, so grateful, for the lack of burning light. The sickly presence of the Radiance was gone, and the vessel had never been more at peace.

There was a quiet shuffling sound, almost completely unnoticeable, and it drew the Hollow Knight out of its rumination.

It realized that some kind of fabric was covering its eyes, draping over its broken shell and dipping slightly into its eye sockets. It lifted its clumsy, aching hand and shifted the cloth away from its eye holes so it could assess the situation.

The first thing that the Hollow Knight realized was that it was not in the Black Egg Temple. 

The next thing that the Hollow Knight noticed was that it was not alone.

\---

The creature was unlike anything that the Hollow Knight had ever seen. Tiny and covered head-to-toe with reddish-brown fur, it was obvious that it wasn’t a bug. It stood on four legs but had a long, wavy tail, that flicked to and fro lazily in the air. Its face was the most un-buglike of all. It had two triangular flaps of fur in the place of horns, and several whiskers poking out from around its facial features. Strangest of all were its eyes, which seemed to constantly dilate and contract, and had not only a black pupil but colored and white bits too. It was absolutely fascinating. The Hollow Knight noticed sharp fangs and a short, flat, and pink proboscis when it opened its mouth to ask “ _ mmmrrreee? _ ”

The Hollow Knight, unable to understand the strange creature’s language, remained still and silent. The creature, however, did not give up and made a strange vibrating sound before padding forwards. It stopped to inspect the vessel’s eye holes, and the Hollow Knight heard a soft  _ snuff snuff _ , before it decided to just press its whole squishy body against the knight’s face. It was a strange sensation, especially with the creature’s vibrating (was it… purring?), but the Hollow Knight might even dare to say that the creature’s presence was actually quite comforting. It found itself leaning into the touch, just a little. 

Now that there was much less possibility of imminent danger, the Hollow Knight allowed itself to scan the surrounding area. It was dark, but not uncomfortably so. The floor directly around the knight was stained with its void-blood (fortunately the bleeding had ceased, but the Hollow Knight still felt a twinge of shame for messing up some poor stranger’s floor). Various odd-looking gardening tools leaned up against the wall, along with some rather strange machines and contraptions lining the floor. It realized that it was in a small wooden shed of some sort, barely wide enough to fit the vessel’s body curled in on itself, but it was still rather impressive. Wood in such great quantity was uncommon in Hollownest, where did someone get enough to build an entire structure? The Hollow Knight deduced that it must be owned by an eccentric noblebug of some sorts, perhaps a gardener or an inventor, or both. 

There was also the pressing question of how the Hollow Knight wound up here in the first place. 

It had been so sure that it was going to die. Between the ravaging pustules of infection and the deep stab wounds from its very own nail, there seemed no chance that the Hollow Knight would survive. But here it was, alive, albeit barely, cursed to suffer alone until it finally succumbed to its wounds. The lingering traces of infection were gone, though. That was nice. It also had a companion, it remembered, as the strange purring creature clambered up its mask and settled comfortably between its horns. That was also nice. 

Maybe their end wouldn’t be so terrible after all.

…

…

…

_ Creeeeak _

…

“...Chessie?”

The Hollow Knight shifted its head to look towards the sound. A door in the side of the shed had opened, just a crack, and there was a soft glow of artificial light. The knight’s companion, previously curled between its horns, seemed to perk up at the voice and responded with a small  _ mew _ of its own. It jumped down to the floor and made its way towards the door, but stopped when the Hollow Knight made a soft keening noise. 

The Hollow Knight started shivering pitifully, void tears pooling in the sockets of its mask. It did not want its new friend to leave it all alone in the dark and the cold, the creature’s presence was warm and fluffy and so, so comforting. It had even managed to forget about its injuries for a short, blessed moment. It silently begged the creature to stay, and for a moment the creature paused, looking back at the poor sniveling excuse for a vessel.

But the world was unforgiving and cruel, and as the voice called again the furry creature turned back towards the door, and the Hollow Knight was once again alone.

(It had experienced this before, once, when it was waiting to be sealed away in the Black Egg for the rest of eternity. The King had said something to it, something that it did not remember, something that the Old Light had taken and twisted and shattered like all the rest of it’s memories. But it had been something so small and quiet and kind, and then the door to the temple had slammed shut and the vessel had been condemned to suffer forever.)

It hurt just as much as it did before.

Now with nothing to distract it from the pain of its injuries, it curled up against the wall of the shed and shivered. It listened to the creature’s receding footsteps and the faint voice that had caused it to leave in the first place as it spoke again. The sound was muffled slightly by the wall of the shed as it grew further and further away.

“ _ Chessie, where have you been? Huh girl? _ ”

“ _ Mrrrrw. _ ”

“ _ That’s what I thought. Momma’s been worried about you, silly cat.” _

_ “Mrrrww” _

_ “Come on... way past time for dinn- hey!” _

More footsteps, the small, fast padding of the creature nearly overwhelmed by the heavier thumps of whoever was speaking. Strange, it seemed like they were getting closer.

They  _ were _ getting closer. 

The small furry creature burst into the room and rammed straight into its side. A few seconds later, the owner of the voice leaned out into the doorway of the shed and came face-to-face with the Hollow Knight.

The being froze and made a soft  _ gasp _ like they were trying to shout but suddenly had no air to breathe. The Hollow Knight instinctively shrunk back and tried to become one with the floor, freezing like a tik-tik in headlights. 

This did not work. The being stood frozen for a long while, staring at the massive vessel that took up almost the entirety of the room. Then, they took a step forward, fully entering the little space that was left in the shed and bringing with them the bright, artificial glow that their light-machine gave off. The Hollow Knight had a split second to realize this before-  _ RADIANCE  _ no no no  _ no no  _ why was  _ she _ here it did not want  _ her _ to come back, it did not want to remember did not want to feel or think or  _ be here at all _ and it flinched back violently and  _ pain _ ripped through it and it pressed itself as far into the corner of the shed as far away from the blinding light as physically possible and void tears flowed free and

The light dimmed dramatically and the Hollow Knight was able to gain control of their senses. It no longer felt blinding and suffocating, as  _ she _ had, and the knight peered out from the way it had twisted itself against the floor in an attempt to escape the light to see that the new being had covered the light-machine with a thick piece of fabric. 

“Woah,” the new being whispered softly. ‘Woah.” The Hollow Knight became aware of the furry creature from before pressing against the side of its head and purring soothingly.  _ It had not been abandoned after all.  _

“Okay,” The new being mumbled. “Okay, woah.” The Hollow Knight tilted its head to stare at them again, and realized that void still streamed down the cheeks of its mask. It took a moment to concentrate and managed to calm itself enough to stop the tears. It continued to tremble, however, as the being lowered themself to a kneel, holding their hands out to convey that they had no intention to harm the vessel. “Are…” they started, then paused. “Are you the monster from the forest?”

The Hollow Knight did not know how to respond to this. It shifted its head slightly, and the purring creature made a little m _ rrr  _ sound. “Can… uh,” the kneeling being continued. “Can you understand me?”

The Hollow Knight attempted to nod but found that it couldn’t raise its head, so it settled for shifting a second time.

“Woah. Woah, okay. I’m going to say that’s a ‘yes’?”

The Hollow Knight shifted again.

The kneeling being brought their hands to their face and emitted an odd wheezing noise. “This is crazy. This is insane. You’re losing it, David.”

The purring creature  _ mrrr _ ’ed in agreement.

The Hollow Knight noticed a dark splotch at the edge of its vision and tilted it’s head around to see. It was a small pool of void, slowly spreading. It realized that it must have reopened its injuries during the frantic episode brought on by the creature’s light-machine. The kneeling being must have realized this too because it made a soft breathy noise and spoke again. “You’re bleeding.”

They got to their feet. “I need to get the first-aid kit… hold on, okay? It’s back at the house but I promise I'll be as fast as I can.”

The Hollow Knight shifted in acknowledgment, ignoring the sting of its injuries. 

\---

The strange being eventually returned, bringing with it a white bag and a rather large and colorful bundle of blankets. “Thank god Mom didn’t catch me,” they told it, opening the bag with a  _ zip _ noise. “She would kill me if she found out there’s a monster in the gardening shed.” The Hollow Knight did not know who “mom” was or why she would kill him but decided that the land outside must be very dangerous and that the creature must be very skilled to have survived so long. 

The Hollow Knight also learned that he did not know what a vessel was, and instead called it a ‘monster,’ which caused it to feel mildly offended. It was all okay though because the strange being had let the furry purring creature (who he called a ‘cat’) stay in the shed with it.

After the being had finished haphazardly wrapping bandages around what was left of its arm and chest, he worked on the crack in its mask. He spoke softly as he bound up the right side of its face, covering its eye (not that it could see out of it anyway, but the being still apologized and that was rather nice of him), and the Hollow Knight learned many things. It learned that the cat’s name was “Chessie,” and that she was very friendly and actually rather fat for her species. It learned that the kind being’s name was David and that hy was a species called ‘human,’ and wae also still an adolescent. It learned that Mom was a very dangerous creature indeed, wielding horrible weapons such as the  _ chancla _ (the vessel of course had no idea what a  _ chancla _ was, but the way that David spoke about it ensured that it must be a weapon of mass destruction) and its respect for the human’s survival abilities increased dramatically. 

The Hollow Knight must have drifted off at some point, lulled to sleep by the melodic purring of the cat creature and the comforting voice of the human, because the next time it awoke the whole area was a great deal lighter. It reminded the Hollow Knight vaguely of the day-cycles back at the White Palace, where the lumaflies would dim and brighten based on the hour. (The memory hurt.)

It looked around and realized that David had left, but the cat creature- Chessie- had stayed and was currently fast asleep in the blanket nest that the being had built around it. Chessie made tiny  _ snrff  _ sounds with each breath, and the Hollow Knight melted a little inside.

David returned eventually, this time bringing a container of water and another rather large bundle of fabric with him. After the Hollow Knight had used a great deal of effort to push itself into the air with its remaining arm while the human quickly positioned the fabric beneath it to form a better nest, he offered it the water. This confused it at first, but then it remembered that David was not aware that it was supposed to be a mindless creation with no real need for physical sustenance. It accepted the water, as to not offend the one who had been so kind to it, and tipped the whole thing into its good-eye socket. 

“I can’t stay with you today,” David said apologetically. “A few days ago my older brother saw a monster in the woods- which was probably you, now that I think about it? Anyway, I forgot that I told my friend that I would help her look for it today, and if I back out on her now it’s going to look really suspicious.” 

He fiddled with something in the pocket of his weird-looking cloak, before drawing it out for the Hollow Knight to see. It was a small grey box with a few buttons on it, and an antenna sticking out of the top. David held it out for the vessel to take, and when it did, he pulled out a second, identical box. 

“It’s called a walkie-talkie,” he explained as the Hollow Knight examined the little device more closely. “If you press this button here-” He pressed the button, and a static-y noise filled the air. “-you speak in one when you’re pressing the button, and your voice will come out of the other one.”

The Hollow Knight tilted their head curiously, staring at the impossible little device. How did David make this? He never mentioned anything about magic or soul, but how else would such a small device perform such an impressive task? David was even more powerful than the Hollow Knight initially thought. 

“Since you don’t really… talk, this doesn't work for you…” The Hollow Knight hunched over sadly. “-But! If you press this button here, my walkie-talkie will make a beeping noise. That way you can call me if anything bad happens while I’m gone.”

He pointed at a little yellow button on the side of the Hollow Knight’s box. “Press it.”   
The Hollow Knight pressed it as ordered, fumbling a little (its hand was large and the button was quite small), and perked up when a long “ _ beeeeeeee! _ ” came from the other walkie-talkie. When it stopped pressing the button, the beeping noise from the other device stopped as well. When it pressed down again, the beeping continued. Fascinating. The Hollow Knight then rapidly pressed and released the button and the machine went crazy, causing David to drop it and bring his hands to the sides of his head. “Okay! Okay, yes, enough please-” 

The Hollow Knight stopped its rapid-fire button mashing and the walkie-talkie quieted once more. David removed his hands from the sides of his head and... began to make a wheezy sound, shoulders shaking. It took the Hollow Knight a moment to realize that he was laughing. It happily reached out its hand and gave the top of David’s furry head a few pats, feeling warm and fuzzy inside. It liked the human, it decided. He was a good friend, albeit a little weird-looking.

“Remember, only use the walkie-talkie if something bad happens while I'm away,” David told it, and it retracted its hand and dipped its head in a slight nod. “Mom is staying late at work today so it should be safe, but on the off-chance that anyone else comes along, press the button and hide, okay?”

The Hollow Knight nodded again. Those were simple instructions, and the fact that it had instructions now gave it a sense of comfort. It may not be able to do much in its current state, but it could still follow orders. David got to his feet.

“Okay, I’d better go now,” he said, tucking one of the walkie-talkies back into the pocket of his strange cloak. “But I’ll be back soon, I promise.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hnnng I'm so sorry for the long delay, Thanksgiving week was a whole hurricane and a half, and then some
> 
> On the bright side, this chapter is a bit longer than the previous ones, and I'm going to aim for at least slightly longer chapters.
> 
> Also, I was replaying HK again and I noticed,,, how Cloth sits,,, she just sploots down right there on the ground and I wish so bad I could add images to the chapter notes but I can't so go look up her sprite sheet and s e e

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time publishing my work, so please tell me if I'm doing anything wrong.^^
> 
> (hhhnng please I know my writing is terrible)
> 
> Thank you for reading! This will update irregularly, partly because I have no control over my life and partly because I'm making up the plot as I go.
> 
> See you next time! ^_^  
> *smashes the window and jumps out*


End file.
